Sunday, October 19, 2014

Evening everyone,I'm not going to bore you with the details of why I haven't been keeping up with weekly updates. Honestly, I got nothing notable since I've tend to show off on my twitter feed.I have started concept art for my next game, it's going to be the game I want to get on the Wii U. I've tooled around with Unity and to be honest, it's still a bit out of my scope with the limited time I have away from my day job. It looks like I'm sticking with Construct 2 for this one, my next step is to tackle what kind of genre it is... Platformer/Explorative, Zelda style top down, etc. The step after that is to start a Patreon account to get funding for:-Dev Kit $2k-Additional Monitor $200-500?-Better equipment $400 maybe?So I'm looking at around $3000.00ish maybe more if I were to make some things for the supporters, but before I put one up I'll have a playable demo showcasing what the game can do, and some swag for supporters like GG-Works shirts, art books, game soundtrack, (both for this and Baxter's Venture), name added to credits into the game.--------------------------------------I've also decided on purchasing a capture card for my youtube videos, I keep trying to do the el-cheapo way and the quality is pretty poor for what I want to produce. Not going to do the whole voice acting thing unless the video calls for it.--------------------------------------Okay, Gamergate... I'm not even going to dignify this with a hashtag. This movement duped many well meaning gamers that it was meant to fight game journalist corruption, but what has been really been going down is people harassing male and female industry workers to the point of them leaving their homes......really guys?To be honest, I've always been thinking that these kind of people aren't really gamers, oh they play and identify as gamers, but the kind of self-rightous psychopaths back before the turn of the century wouldn't be caught dead with a game controller. I've lived in Kingman, Arizona most of my life and I can testify I've met some very crazy folk in my youth, the kind you would see trolling the interwebs. Sometimes people say things in the throws of passion, and while they may be passionate about games, they feel threatened that Jack Thompson 2.0, aka feminism are going to take their games away. In the heart of it, these are the same kind of people who thrive in making people miserable, because "cynicism is cool". You might know that kind of person, where every other word they say is "fuck", and don't think very rationally. They're angry, say angry things, insecurity breeding false confidence. They just hate, and they thrive on it, there's no reason why they hate so hard, they just do. It's like the Monarch from the Venture Bros, but much less hilarious.I'll say this, and it's something I'd never thought I'd say, and Godwin help me I promised I'd never turn this blog into a political poopdeck, but here goes:I don't think Anita Sarkeesian ever made a proposal to ban videogames because they're sexist. I don't agree with few things she's nitpicked on in her videos, though some areas she does have a point. Then, and ONLY then if she decides to create a crusade to ban videogames because of the things she criticizes, THEN gamers will have a problem, I think gamers are afraid of that conclusion if the "other side gets their way."Jack Thompson was still worse, he wanted to outright BAN videogames because of claims that led to people being violent... while dubious in those days, I hate to say it but many gamergate supporters doing the threatening and the name calling are proving him right. Jack did get death threats and the like, and he still gets disbarred years later.What would be ironic is that gamergate backfired to the point where the courts do get involved and started regulating what goes into our games... I can't fathom the amount of nerd rage that would surface from this, it would make the backlash from SOPA look like a joke in comparison. This is my concern, because nature abhors a vacuum. But it won't happen, Gaming is too big now to be taken away, but it can change. First of all, speaking to the anti-GG people for a moment:"Labeling EVERY SINGLE GAMER as vicious sexist trolls because a vocal minority is trying to drag this out with their own agenda is a very naive thing to do." Gaming journalists, moreso SJWs, if you're reading remember this:Racists lump everyone together in a negative light because they believe they are justified in doing so. People on the anti-GG side are doing the same thing right now, lumping gamers as this fearmongering hate group because a few loudmouths can't learn to shut the eff up. I've been labeled before, I've dealt with racism and trust me when I say this, lumping people into a negative collective is the exact same thing racists do. Rather than attacking the gamers, attack the individuals that are harassing you, bring those people toward the light rather than picking on the majority of people who just want honest game journalism, not click bait articles.Many of us do get some of the things like sexism and misogyny, hell many of us would love diversity. Like with every fandom, there are going to be assholes that don't want it, look how long it took for the film and music industry to learn, give gaming some more time, it might suck right now, but trust me on this, once the big companies decide to target a different (wider) audience, those assholes will have to either accept or find a new hobby. Remember videogames were considered a geek only affair, when the dudebros and "non-gamers" flooded our hobby thanks to a change in the industry by focusing the gritty dark games, Madden, and shooters, it was a hard adjustment, but we managed, and we will again. Just give it time.

Look, I've been there. I used to get defensive when someone questions the things I like, I grew up in a time where you would get your ass kicked in school for TALKING about videogames. Where the likes of Duke Nukem, Wolfenstien, and the original DOOM were, considered a certain homophobic slur from people who don't play them... I loathed when Jack Thompson came on the scene and try to label videogames, from the harmless Super Mario to the over the top GTA3 as these big evil death simulators that corrupt 'Murica's youth, I wanted blood. Then I realized (albeit a couple years later) I was being stupid. This was my favorite hobby, it gave me positive reinforcement when the rest of my life was in constant misery, so please try some kind of understanding when you decide to trash a medium you don't agree with that brings other people some kind of joy, even if they're being a little ignorant of it's subject matter.

As for the more vocal members of GG...When you're a young adult with an internet connection, you tend to think you're some unstoppable force behind a keyboard. My advice to you is to take a good hard look at what you're supporting. I GET there are some bad apples on the other side of the gamergate, but you had the opportunity to be the better person and failed hard. We had it in the bag when Thompson tried his damnedest to convince the ignorant public that "gamer" is a dirty word.Now history repeats itself, no one learned a damn thing, you've screwed it up, and Thompson must be laughing in his latte right about now.